LAUNCH OF U-571

Mostow was in the finishing stages of Breakdown when he began to put the wheels for U-571 into motion.

"I knew producer Dino De Laurentiis had actually been looking to make a World War II movie," Mostow says, "so, I walked into Dino and his wife Martha De Laurentiis' office one day and asked them to read the script I had been working on."

Legendary Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis read Mostow's first draft and immediately loved it.

"When you do any story‹a love story, action, drama or futuristic‹if you deliver emotion to the audience in each sequence, you have a winner," Mr. De Laurentiis says. "And that's what was in this script."

Ms. Laurentiis recalls, "For years, Dino's always wanted to make a few films about World War I and World War II because war pictures are so emotional and dramatic, so in the face of tragedy. When Jonathan pitched us this film, we encouraged him because we already had a great relationship with him."

Two years later, pre-production on U-571 began in Rome at the famed Cinecitta Studios and on the island of Malta.

"When you finish the script, you take off your writer's hat and you put on your director's hat and you go, 'Oh my God, how am I possibly going to pull this off? I need help!'" discloses Mostow.

Mr. De Laurentiis, whose experience spans over 60 years in the film business, offers, "Every director needs around him the best people: production designers, special effects, director of photography, wardrobe, etc., because he cannot do everything alone."

On U-571, they had some of the best talent available to help authentically recreate these fighting machines that were a key part of World War II.

The filmmakers brought the large-scale action sequences of U-571 to life through the use of full-size vessels, which were actually put to sea and engaged in the spectacular battle scenes called for in the screenplay. During an extensive pre-production schedule in Malta, the production crew constructed a 600-ton full-sized sea-going replica of a German type VII U-boat, as well as an American submarine from the same time period.

The biggest challenge was recreating the World War II submarines. Mr. De Laurentiis says, "The problem with this movie was finding the submarines to shoot because no World War II submarine exists any place in the world that we can use for our purposes. You are obliged to build brand new submarines."

To begin the pre-production process that would end up lasting over 18 months, the De Laurentiises first brought their trusted line producer Lucio Trentini onto the project.

Then they and Mostow hired two production designers: Götz Weidner who was the production designer on Das Boot, director Wolfgang Petersen's acclaimed film about the harrowing life of a German U-boat crew, and William Ladd Skinner, who served as art director on such films as the Academy Award®-winning Dances With Wolves as well as the critically-acclaimed 12 Monkeys.

Weidner, who lives full-time in Munich and has spent most of his career working on German and French productions, was hired because of his experience on the ground-breaking Das Boot.

"Because we had different types of sets‹some are very American and, of course, some very German‹it was helpful to have two designers on the film so that I could give the German perspective which gives those sets more reality, while Bill handled the American sets," says Weidner.

Skinner agrees and says, "This story required not only historically accurate interiors and exteriors, but presented a unique set of filming requirements. Half of the challenge was to design the sets to be 'film friendly' so that Jonathan could do what he needed to help tell the story."

He elaborates, "For example, with the interiors, each submarine configuration was designed modularly so as to be disassembled, moved, then reconfigured onto a complex gimbal system that allowed for radical set angles and movements as well as the ability to be submerged. In addition, we had to allow for major water effects, like high pressure leaks, flooding and sinking."

As for the research, Skinner reveals, "Since Goetz had the research from Das Boot, recreating the U-boat wasn't that problematic. However, the S-boat was a different matter because there was very little photographic information as compared to the Germans. The Americans kept more restrictive rules about information regarding these machines which made it difficult."

The insight and direction provided by technical advisor Vice-Admiral Hannifin was priceless.

"Once Hannifin was aboard and saw what we were developing from archival drawings that I had found in Washington D.C., he was able to relate his own experience having worked on these ships himself so many years ago, which made our jobs easier in building the sets," recalls Skinner.

Hannifin's first submarine assignment was on an S-boat, the submarine helmed by Bill Paxton's character Lt. Commander Mike Dahlgren at the beginning of U-571. As with Balme, Hannifin was more than impressed after seeing the film.

"It was very well done," says Hannifin. "The sequences were very smooth...they did the things that submarines are supposed to do."

Most amazing to Hannifin were the tiny details which Mostow was able to capture in his screenplay and on the screen.

"Mostow was absolutely right to show the S-boats leaking so badly, even at depths of 150 feet," says Hannifin.

Balme was equally impressed after visiting Mostow and the cast and crew on the set in Malta, praising the realisitic situations in which the men were placed.

"I was most impressed with the way the production whipped up a real Atlantic storm in about a quarter of an hour. It was very realistic there," Balme says.

Scenes depicting the interiors of the vessels were shot on sets constructed on sound stage #5 at Cinecitta Studios in Rome, Europe's largest sound stage. For the Rome portion of the shoot, Special Effects Supervisor Allen Hall, who won the Academy AwardΠfor his work on Forrest Gump, had to design a massive specialized gimbal which could sit in water.

He says, "I think it's the best gimbal in the world right now because it's built in a giant tank so you can lower it, which means people can access it directly on stage level and not twenty feet in the air. That feature makes it extremely user-friendly."

Ms. De Laurentiis continues, "What Allen designed hasn't been created on any other show. Its size and capability of its motion is fantastic and is considered the Ferrari of gimbals."

Mostow marvels, "It's a massive engineering feat. We can put portions of the submarine set on the gimbal and simulate depth charging and sea motion. It's also designed to actually work under water so that we can submerge the set as well."

Also key to the production was showing audiences the differences between these diesel boats (the S-boats and the U-boats) and the nuclear submarines, which are the more traditional submarines seen on the big screen.

"The reality is that a diesel submarine is a surface ship that submerges occassionally," says Hannifin. "The nuclear submarine is a true submarine, submerging and then surfacing two to three months later. Living conditions are quite different on each of these vessels."

Conditions on the diesel submarines were extremely harsh: showers were permitted once a week, if at all, and the stale air was sometimes freezing and sometimes over 100 degrees with nearly 100 percent humidity. And first aid was severely inadequate.

Malta was chosen as the location for the exterior sequences because of the two enormous outdoor tanks at the MFS Film Studios where numerous films set at sea had previously been shot. For the intensive storm sequence, Hall and his team built the largest rain-making cranes in movie history to simulate the needed tempest called for in the script.

Hall explains, "It was a big rain job because the tank is so huge, almost 400 feet across, and we had to get rain out there somehow. With the wind conditions constantly changing, we had to have cranes that could move so we could put the rain where we wanted."

In addition, it was necessary to build Œfloater' subs for the tanks and Œseaworthy' subs that could be used in open waters for the exterior sequences. Marine Consultant & Coordinator Captain Lance H. Julian who stood by James Cameron's side throughout the filming of Titanic, became the next integral crew member to join the team.

Julian, who had worked in Malta before says, "I was brought on very early in the project to assist the production designers. They wanted to build a submarine that would do everything other than dive. We went through various exercises of how to do it, where it would be built, building it, doing the sea trials to ensure that it was safe and finally getting it on the water."

Skinner recounts, "Lance's knowledge of the seaworthiness of boats and the needs for filming with seaworthy structures, including everything from generators needed on board to accommodating lighting as well as being able to have water tight hatches and lavatory facilities, were invaluable to us as we hammered out our designs."

In order to portray the submarine under the water, Visual Effects Supervisor Peter Donen was brought on at the early stages of pre-production as well. Known for his work with the plane crashes on U.S. Marshals and Executive Decision, he explains, "I get hired to do what is called Œinvisible effects.' ŒInvisible' because the whole idea of what I'm doing is to make people believe that what they're seeing is reality."

He continues, "For this film we had to build five 45-foot miniature submarines that do various things. One submarine has working propellers, working dive planes, periscopes that go up and down, and torpedo tubes that can fire. Another boat is our ocean-going submarine that is towed out in the open ocean behind some tug boat at seven knots and can submerge and surface upon command. The others are designed for blowing up and sinking in various forms and shapes."

Costume Designer April Ferry, who received an Oscar® nomination for her work on Maverick, faced numerous challenges as well.

"It was fascinating to find out in our research that the German submarine guys were allowed to wear just about anything," Ferry says. "In fact, we made the uniforms so authentic to our research that Dino came up to me one day, and said that they didn't look German. I had to remind him that we were doing a submarine picture, and not a picture about the SS."

With the talented behind-the-scenes department heads working diligently towards providing the most realistic sets, wardrobe and props for Mostow's fictionalized World War II submarine story, it took over a year in careful preparation before principal photography could begin.